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Fire causes major explosion of...

WTF?

Fire causes major explosion of semen at cattle breeding centre

Jonathan Duane
Jonathan Duane

02:14 17 Sep 2019


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Yikes, talk about a messy clean up job...

A horror clean up job awaits service crews in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia after an explosion at cattle breeding facility today.

Thousands of dollars worth of bull semen was destroyed after a cattle building exploded in fire early this morning.

Emergency services were called to Yarram Herd Services at about 3am(AEST) where 100 cryogenic cylinders containing cattle semen exploded in the blaze.

It took 10 fire crews more than two hours to contain the fire at the building, which is a cattle breeding service.

Yarram Herd Services' committee vice-chairman Aaron Thomas said the loss would be a "huge blow" for farmers, with the cylinders worth between $500 and $1000 each.

"We're coming into the artificial insemination (AI) season so there would have been substantial amounts of semen inside the tanks that we've lost which was owned by our local farmers, and it can range in value from $5 per straw to $95 per straw," he told the ABC.

"A lot of farmers would have semen stock in the building, in those tanks, preparing for AI, so we've got that plus all of our herd testing equipment that was in there as well.

"So this is significant damage and it is going to have a flow-on affect on Yarram, especially after the drought that Yarram district has experienced over the last 12 months, it's going to be a real blow for sure."

Investigators are determining the cause of the fire.


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